


Ancient Lessons

by Barbedbeat



Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: Awakenings - Freeform, Friendship, Other, engwithan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-09 15:03:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16452164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Barbedbeat/pseuds/Barbedbeat
Summary: Ficlet I wrote under commission for my good friend Chimera!





	Ancient Lessons

Qurin’s fingers traced the inscriptions on the digsite walls, a sharp claw grazing the contours of an ancient carving.   
“Oh, this one’s good!”   
She grinned, motioning her companions closer.   
Her nostrils filled with the honey fragrance of smoke as Edér leaned in, pipe crackling between his lips, squinting at the foreign language etched before his eyes.   
“What’s this mea-- oh, look!”   
He stabbed a pictogram with a sausage-sized thumb, a chuckle scraping at the back of his throat.   
“Haha, this one looks like guy. Or a pig.”   
He blinked.   
“Maybe a man-pig, or...”   
Qurin pushed him away, prying a chuckle out of him.   
“It’s no man-pig, you imbecile!”   
She patted him on his knee, trying not to burst out laughing herself.   
“That’s a… a parable.”   
She puckered her brow, trying to find the right words.   
“It’s about Caèth the Great. A champion of Magran.  _ Felled by her enemies, yet she kept fighting, till the last of her light died. Her fire, however, still burns bright. _ ”  
Her hands wiggled in unison with her words as she read the story of that exceptional woman, and her arms cut the air with transport as she described the moment of her resurrection in ultimate service of her Goddess.   
Just as she was combing her mane, clearing her throat after such a long exposition, she heard a wistful sigh erupt from behind her back.   
She turned around to see Aloth staring dreamingly at the Engwithan inscriptions, a smile brightening his features along with the blazing torches all around them.   
“Like what you see, Aloth boy?”   
The wizard inhaled sharply, shoulders suddenly stiff.   
“Ah?! No, I mean-- yes, in a way. It’s just...”  
He dabbed at his chin, cocking his head towards the shimmering words on the wall, at once so alien and alluring to him.   
“...I find it fascinating. Engwithan, I mean.”   
He dabbed at the writings, enraptured by their perfected intricacy.   
“I must admit I envy you, Qurin. Being able to decipher such an ancient language, uncover millenia-old secrets, soak in their venerable wisdom...”   
He chuckled, shaking his head a fraction.   
“Who knows, maybe one day you might even teach me.”   
His tone was playful, but the spark of hope lingering behind it didn’t fall on deaf ears.   
The Godlike placed her hands on her hips and stared at him with an exaggerated frown.   
“Well,  _ I _ know. Cause I am going to teach you. We’re starting tonight.”   
She met his surprise with a clap.   
“Come on, get some fire going and put some soup on the coals. We’re camping here for the night.”   
  


* * *

 

The bonfire burnt and crackled, stretching its tendrils to caress the bottom of a black pot.   
The hearty smell of squash soup soon filled Qurin’s nostrils, and she helped herself to a generous bowl.   
Then, when nothing was left but a few specks clinging to her spoon, she stood up and took a deep breath.   
“So, Aloth. Let’s dive in, shall we?”   
The wizard immediately cast his slop aside, too excited to eat.   
He followed her back to the graffitied hall and flipped his notebook open.   
Qurin met his gaze, and felt a smirk blossoming on her lips.   
“Engwithan isn’t that difficult, after all. Think of it like...”   
She began pacing back and forth, a hand held behind her back, the other flailing in the air, wrist swatting to underscore her every sentence.   
“... like sparring with a dude who looks big, but can’t take a blow to save his life. Sure, it looks intimidating, but in the end it’s fairly easy to tackle. Let’s start with...”   
She brought a finger to her lips.   
“Uh, the basics. Right.”   
She paused, suddenly unsure.   
The cogs in her mind whirred madly as she tried to form an organic train of thoughts, but she was a monk, not a teacher, and a spark of anger had started fluttering in her chest.   
“The alphabet is kinda tricky, so let’s hop over that, for now. The verbs are easier, they’re all in-- in the present? I think so, yeah, present tense, and the thing is, you can get the meaning of the whole thing by following the order of the… of the characters, which are difficult though. I… No, no: scrap that. Forget everything I said.”   
She raised her eyes to meet Aloth’s and saw his face go ashen.   
The poor guy was clearly confused beyond himself, and the tip of his pencil quivered anxiously on the scratch-riddled paper on his lap.   
He’d been marking down her every word, and a swarm of ?s had sprouted at the margin of his sheet.   
Qurin was starting to sweat, scrambling to find a way out of that pickle that seemed to threaten her credibility in the eyes of the young elf, when she felt a jolt electrocute her temples.   
Then, she felt herself sigh.   
Only, it wasn’t a sigh proper, no: it was something akin to a spasm of her very soul, that slowly stretched to radiate from the inside of her body out.   
_ Leave this to me. _ __   
She felt her every muscle freeze, her control waning along with her active consciousness.   
Estriel had taken over.   
Her spine straightened as the wizard inhabited her form, cracking his neck to obviate the discomfort of his awareness’ new accommodation.

“Friend Aloth,” the Inquisitor started, his voice soft yet authoritative, a pleasant simper on his lips.   
“I imagine you must be terrified, after all the idiocies my current incarnation enjoyed spewing at you like the overflowing kettle she is. Yet, don’t be.”   
Qurin felt herself relax, slowly sliding to the ground.   
She found herself in a sitting position, legs crossed underneath her, hands firmly placed on her knees.   
She watched as Aloth swallowed, his bewilderment replaced by a deeper kind of turmoil.   
“E-- Estriel?” He whispered, a bead of sweat rolling down his nose.   
“It is I, friend Aloth. Who better than a born Engwithan to teach you my beautiful language?”   
Estriel saw him shudder slightly, but his mind was too focused on the incoming teachings to take full notice of it.   
“As Qurin just said-- the only sensible thing that slipped out of that big mouth of hers so far-- Engwithan looks intimidating, but mastering it requires two things only. Patience, friend Aloth, and dedication.”   
He steepled his fingers before continuing.   
“And I’m sure you possess both qualities. Now, let’s start with the basics. Engwithan is a tonal language. It means every word can shed its meaning and acquire new connotations dependently from the way it’s pronounced. The alphabet is composed of four main groups or characters...”  
Estriel talked and talked, gaze cast low, voice smooth and steady, information pouring out of him like a trickle of honey wine.   
He took sideways glances of his pupil from time to time, and always found him bent on his notebook, scribbling fervently, nodding ever-so-slightly every time some important notion came up.   
They stayed like this for hours, until Edér’s snores began ringing in the near-darkness, and Estriel had to conjure a floating wisp to obviate to the fire’s growing atrophy.   
When nothing was left to say, Estriel got up, and took a few, pompous steps towards his elven colleague.   
“I hope your curiosity has been partially sated, friend Aloth.”   
The wizard squirmed under his gaze, but his smile was true.   
Their hands clasped in a firm shake and, Estriel noted, Aloth’s hand was awfully clammy.   
“Thank you, Estriel. It means a lot.”   
The inquisitor nodded, and found the same smirk blooming on his lips.   
Once they’d pulled away, he squeezed his eyes shut and began retreating.   
_ You owe me one _ , Qurin heard as her senses buzzed alive, and she was herself once more.

  
As soon as Qurin’s head hit her makeshift pillow, she could feel the warm kiss of slumber closing in around her.   
Estriel’s reemergence had a way of sapping her of her energies, much akin to a physical effort too intense done in too little time.  
Before surrendering to the tug of sleep, however, she caught a glimpse of Aloth.  
He was sitting on his bedroll, a finger grazing the pages on which his notes lay, his free palm casting a weak glow on the paper.  
When she woke up, she found Edér sitting next to the bonfire, intent on plopping a live ember in his pipe.  
“Morning,” he grumbled, placing a fresh pot of coffee on the coals.  
“‘Rning,” Qurin spluttered, trying to comb her whiskers back into a civilized order.  
She rolled off her mattress and crawled towards her mug, like a lost ship following a beacon in the dark.  
The coffee was hearty and sweet, and it dissipated the fog of sleep that had taken hold of her brain in two minutes flat.  
“Mmh, good stuff. Needs more honey though.”  
Edér blinked in surprise.  
“Rin, I put four spoonfuls in yours. Put two in Aloth’s earlier, thought he’d kick the bucket from how sweet that was.”  
Qurin snorted in her drink, sending droplets dripping down her chin.  
“À propos of Aloth...” She looked around the whole room, but there was no trace of the man.  
“... where is he?”  
Edér placed his pipe between his teeth and pointed at the corridor behind his shoulder with a thumb.  
“Saw him scuttle there, back in the hall. His nose was so deep inside that book of his you’d think he wanted to eating the thing for breakfast.”  
Qurin felt an alien wave of hurry pervading her muscles and, before she could have a say in the matter, she found herself racing in the direction of Edér’s gesture.  
She darted through the etching-riddled corridors and found Aloth standing in a corner, pencil in hand, eyes flickering with a kind of happiness she’d seldom witnessed.  
“Aloth!!” She panted, placing a palm on the wall next to him.  
“What in Hel are you doing here all alone?!”  
The elf gasped, and his pencil nearly fell out of his hand as his concentration flew out of the cracks in the ceiling.  
“Ah, Qurin!! You almost scared me.”  
“Yeah, almost,” she chuckled, poking him with a fist.  
“Oh! You got yourself busy I see.”  
She peeked up at his notebook and felt an exclamation mark coalesce atop her head.  
There, on the page, was a nearly perfect translation of Caèth’s parable, transposed in Aedyran by the wizard’s orderly handwriting.  
Qurin pinched the bridge of her nose as a wave of alien delight surged through her in warm bursts, making her head spin.  
Aloth chuckled, oblivious to her perturbation.  
“Oh, so I did! Estriel taught me quite a lot, I must say. Sure, my diction is far from perfect, and I still have to work on my calligraphy. Though, I feel like I got the gist of i--”  
He fell silent as Qurin’s arms closed around his waist in a warm embrace.  
 _“We’re so proud of you, you antsy mess of an elf.”_


End file.
